By Grace Udofia
Apparently worried about the high unemployment rate in their home country, some Nigerian students would rather risk pursing multiple degrees abroad than return home to add to the statistics of job seekers in Africa’s most populous nation.
In a chat with BBC, some of these students living abroad explained that it was better to enroll for further courses of study to remain legal in the system, than return to Nigeria.
For Bonuola a Nigerian student in Belgium, she said, “ People complete a Master’s degree, go back to do some advanced diploma below their academic level, then some cheap certificate, all in a bid to remain legal in the system.”
She further explained that the possibility of a second Master’s degree and a PhD is not ruled out especially if she is unable to find work that will open the way for her to get a permanent visa.
In her own vein, Modupe Osunkoya narrated how she, with just three months left on her student visa, was left with the option of getting a job or leave Belgium.
However she decided to go for a third option enrolling for her third post-graduate degree even though it didn’t seem like part of what she had mapped out for herself.
“I never saw myself doing a PhD but if I go home now, there is no job waiting for me,” she said.
These and many more are the plights of some Nigerian students who are faced with the options of having to return to face unemployment or enroll for further studies, even when it seem unconvincing to some of them who fall among middle class that have to work extra hard to be able to school abroad.
Despite their preference to stay back in those countries, like most foreigners, Nigerian students typically pay more than three times the fees paid by UK students or those from EU countries.
And it is still hard for Nigerians to get white-collar jobs in the UK, and even more so, in places like Belgium where language counts against them.
According to BBC’s, report one in three young people are without work -and comparatively living in poor conditions, meaning that many of Nigeria’s brightest would rather take their chances abroad than return home.
